war pigs

Calmness takes over,
chill creeps into my bones and I fall asleep;

I don’t feel old but I am deranged,

Overshadowed by the fog that still looms around,

Snow still kissing my knees till they are numb,

The anxiety to stand up grips those tiring nerves,

I wondered am I sixty or sixteen,

Mist cleared and there she stood,

As if I heard her say: “you are a good soldier,

lead your men into the battle, god shall be with you”.

The smoke around looked almost holy,

for me to believe that this really was war.

The chaos and strife almost unbearable took us to the limit,

This hideousness, almost crunching us to tatters.

Legs thrashed, hands blown up, bones shattered,

We were the war pigs.

We were a band of brothers who had shed blood and tears on D-day,

War had been won but lives lost aplenty,

My hands cramping of holding my dead mates,

On this day tears didn’t flow,

just a sigh of relief that it was over.

This nightmare has been with me for the past forty years;

I am Maj. Dick Winters,

A soldier of godly fortune, who survived the war by will.

For all these years that I have earned a nine or a ten,

I have been proud that I led a bunch of brave men.